You may be able to free up some valuable space if you’re using two disk partitions, using two physical drives, or dual-booting between XP and Vista on the same machine.

I’ll show you several steps you can take to eliminate duplicate files and get more out of your disks.

Decide on your multiple-partition strategy Years ago, it was common for users seeking more reliability to divide a hard drive into two or more partitions: portions of a disk, each with a different drive letter. Back then, recovering data from drive d: was easier than from drive c: if the primary partition (containing Windows) became corrupted.

That configuration is rare today, because backup programs and disaster-recovery services have improved. But there are still three situations in which you might find yourself handling two or more partitions or physical disks:

1. Multiple physical drives (internal or external). When space grew scarce on your c: drive, perhaps you added an additional drive d: to get more room;

2. Separate code and data partitions. You created separate c: and d: partitions on a single hard drive, installing Windows on the first partition, but c: is now running out of space and you don’t wish to run partition-management software to change the size of the partitions;

My Feb. 21 story reported that Microsoft considers Vista Ultimate, an upgrade from Vista Home Premium and Vista Business, to be a “consumer product,” reducing the company’s support for Ultimate to a maximum of 5 years rather than 10.

What’s confusing to buyers is that Microsoft does give a full 10 years of support to another consumer product: Windows XP Media Center Edition. Inconsistency plagues Microsoft support policies As last week’s story revealed, Microsoft has recently imposed severe limits on the number of Vista Ultimate copies that buyers of the company’s Software Assurance program are licensed to install. The Redmond company is now actively discouraging the use of Ultimate in business settings, despite statements on its Web site describing the more-expensive Ultimate version as the product for “those who want to have it all.”

Because Vista Ultimate is a “consumer” product, the logic goes, it is only entitled to a maximum of 5 years of support, not the 10 years available under the extended support system, according to Microsoft’s Volume Licensing page for Vista Ultimate.

The longer, 10-year period known as “extended support” is typically available for business-oriented products, such as Windows XP Professional, Vista Business, and Vista Enterprise.

In that vein, a reader who wishes to remain anonymous points out an interesting fact:

“Your story on Vista Ultimate volume licensing is good and should be promoted more. I would like to point out that in the case of XP Media Center, which is a purely consumer SKU, MS is offering the same support as XP Professional. Why discriminate against Vista?”

This statement is confirmed by Microsoft’s Support Lifecycle page, which shows that all versions of XP Media Center Edition are eligible for 10 years of extended support.

I don’t trust Windows Update to install new drivers for devices that Microsoft isn’t responsible for.

Check out my reasons in this week’s column and see if you agree.

Are the hardware drivers from Windows Update OK? Microsoft’s mostly a software company, so how much should you trust Microsoft’s Windows Update when it starts nagging you about new drivers for your non-Microsoft hardware? That was the issue facing K. Asher when he wrote:

“I’ve got an Athlon XP 3000 32-bit CPU. Windows Update has been repeatedly offering me an ‘optional’ hardware update for it since December 2007, so I went looking on the AMD site and found no driver update. What should I do?”

In my experience, the hardware driver updates offered via Windows Update (WU) tend to be very generic and aimed at broad ranges of hardware rather than at exact versions. They also can lag far behind the updates offered directly by hardware manufacturers. Plus, the WU hardware-sniffing routines also seem weaker and less specific than those found at the manufacturers’ sites.

For example, just this week WU offered me a driver update for a printer I don’t have. I’ve never even owned that brand of printer! The WU hardware-sniffer was simply wrong, and misidentified my hardware.

Obviously, installing a generic, old, or misidentified driver can actually make things worse for your system: a downgrade, not an update. And even if the WU driver works, there’s a good chance that a driver direct from the manufacturer might work better.

So, when WU offers me a hardware driver update, I do as K. Asher did: I go to the hardware maker’s site and use that company’s tools and info to determine whether or not my specific hardware really needs an update. If there’s a disagreement between WU and the hardware maker’s own site, I always defer to the manufacturer’s advice. They made the stuff — they should know what’s best for it.

Disk-drive storage capacity is growing at a rapid pace, but there’s a new player in town.

In the not-too-distant future, we might find that good ol’ hard drives are a thing of the past; this week, I’ll tell you about new storage technology that’s growing by leaps and bounds.

The solid-state drive market heats up Flash disk technology is great, because it’s lightweight, uses only a small amount of power, and is typically pretty fast in terms of access speed. Naturally, disk-drive manufacturers are looking toward using solid-state technology as a method of building bigger and better storage systems.

Samsung has been offering 32GB solid-state drives (SSD) since March 2006 and a 64GB SSD since March 2007. In January, the company announced that it will release a new 128GB SATA II SSD sometime this year.

In September of last year, BitMicro announced its new E-Disk Altima E2A133BL SSD with a more traditional PATA (ATA-133) interface. That drive can hold up to 416GB of data. Then, in January, the company announced a new model, the Altima E2A3GM, a SATA drive that can hold twice as much — 832GB!

But both of those drives pale in comparison to the company’s latest announcement. BitMicro says that its new Altima E3S320 has an Ultra320 SCSI interface and can store up to 1.6 terabytes of data. Wow!

If you’re responsible for updating your company’s systems, you now face service packs (and related problems) for XP, Vista, and Microsoft’s .NET Framework — and even Mac enthusiasts have to deal with repercussions from the recent 10.5.2 OS X upgrade.

If that weren’t enough, those of you who haven’t yet deployed the latest MS Office service packs will find plenty of quirks to chew on this week.

935796 Vista SP1 breaks a few security suites If you’be been reading the headlines in several news sources lately, you’d think that Vista Service Pack 1 has it in for third-party security software. I don’t think the situation is that dire.

Microsoft recently posted Knowledge Base article 935796, which includes a partial but significant list of software that should be upgraded before or immediately after you install Vista SP1.

Some of the coverage I’ve read makes it sound like those who install Vista SP1 will face numerous issues with many programs. The reality, however, is that most of the affected vendors have already released updates.

Tables 1, 2, and 3 show the applications that will be blocked from running, won’t run successfully, or will run with reduced features after Vista SP1 is installed, according to Microsoft. The company’s KB article links to some fixes that have been released by vendors. In some cases, however, I’ve inserted into the “Resolution” column of these tables a better vendor page to link to.

The Windows Secrets Newsletter is published weekly on the 1st through 4th Thursdays of each month, plus occasional news updates. We skip an issue on the 5th Thursday of any month, the week of Thanksgiving, and the last two weeks of August and December. Windows Secrets is a continuation of four merged publications: Brian's Buzz on Windows and Woody's Windows Watch in 2004, the LangaList in 2006, and the Support Alert Newsletter in 2008.

Trademarks: Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. The Windows Secrets series of books is published by
Wiley Publishing Inc. The Windows Secrets Newsletter, WindowsSecrets.com, Support Alert, LangaList, LangaList Plus, WinFind, Security Baseline, Patch Watch, Perimeter Scan, Wacky Web Week, the Logo Design (W, S or road, and Star), and the slogan Everything Microsoft Forgot to Mention all are trademarks and service marks of WindowsSecrets.com. All other marks are the trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.HOW TO SUBSCRIBE: Anyone may subscribe to this newsletter by visiting our
free signup page.

HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE: To unsubscribe
from the Windows Secrets Newsletter,

Trademarks: Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. The Windows Secrets series of books is published by Wiley Publishing Inc. The Windows Secrets Newsletter, WindowsSecrets.com, WinFind, Windows Gizmos, Security Baseline, Patch Watch, Perimeter Scan, Wacky Web Week, the Logo Design (W, S or road, and Star), and the slogan Everything Microsoft Forgot to Mention all are trademarks and service marks of iNET Interactive. All other marks are the trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.